o-education, in the primary department, where a few boys had been
admitted. Here I saw a daughter and a son of the Pasha of Syria in the
same room and in the same class. "And how does this system work?" I
asked. "Well;" the sister said, "admirably; it is especially good for
the boys, who, in this country, are so arrogant and overbearing. They
are born with a contempt for girls; and begin, when they are but little
things, to lord it over them. But it has a wonderful influence to humble
their pride, to find the girls fully their equals, as they are, in their
classes."

Dr. Clarke says, that "the error of the co-education of the sexes, and
which prophesies their identical co-education in colleges and
universities, is not confined to technical education. It permeates
society." That it does so, is true, but that it is always an "error," we
should not so readily admit, as one of its permeating effects upon
society in Beyrout, may illustrate. In one church, through conformity to
Oriental prejudices against any sign of equality between men and women,
the sittings designed for the men on one side, and the women on the
other, had always been separated by a heavy curtain drawn between them.
Reaching far above the heads of the worshippers, even when they should
be standing, it had formed a complete partition wall, dividing the
church up to the space in front of the preacher's desk. But this curtain
had, within the last few months, been removed, and the minister was now,
on Sundays, dispensing a straightforward gospel, the same to men and
women. Thus was the co-education system in the school already permeating
the church! This was noticed with surprise by a missionary whom I had
met on the Mediterranean, returning, after two or three years' absence
in this country, to his former mission field, and who entered the
church, for the first time after his return, with me. "Ah!" he
exclaimed, "this denotes a great advance in Christian sentiment! This is
as it should be. And how does it work?" he asked of the pastor of the
church, in delighted surprise. "Admirably," was the reply. There was
some remonstrance on the part of some of the older men at first, but
even they did not seem to think anything about it any longer, and it was
so much more agreeable preaching to the people all together, than to
have his congregation separated by that high wall of a curtain, and to
seem to be dispensing one kind of gospel to the men, and another to the
wo